host: we are continuing our series, looking at different parts of the fiscal cliff talks. today we want to focus on sequestration. joining us now is robert levenson, a senior defense analyst at bloomberg government. let's begin with what secret -- with what sequestration means. term. if you have looked it up on google 20 months ago, it would have something to do with coal and carbon, but this is about automatic cuts going into place known as sequestration. host: how did this come about? where is it headed? caller: as we recall from last year, there was a crisis over raising the debt ceiling. republicans demanded some cuts from congress. they agreed to $1 trillion in cuts, they handed over $1.50 trillion to the super committee. because they failed to come up with a deal that could be approved by congress and the president, those automatic cuts go into effect, $1.20 trillion over 10 years. the first cut will go into effect on january 2 of 2013. host: how are the defense sequestration cuts being applied? are we sure? guest: we are not exactly sure, but the law says that every